CHP Honors Officers Who Died on Duty

On a warm night in October, 1957, CHP Officer Dale Fletcher was helping to restrain an emotionally disturbed man outside the county hospital when the suspect grabbed a gun from another officer’s holster and fired.

The shot pierced Officer Robert E. Reed’s heart, killing him almost instantly. Just before he collapsed, Reed managed to wrestle his gun back from the suspect, preventing him from firing again.

“If Bob hadn’t done what he did, I wouldn’t be here today,” Fletcher, 68, recalled Friday at a ceremony in Ventura to honor California Highway Patrol officers in Ventura County and statewide who died in the line of duty.

Since 1945, four CHP officers assigned to the Ventura County office have been killed. All except Reed died in traffic collisions.

On Friday, Capt. Chuck Campbell, commander of the county’s CHP office, praised the four officers and dedicated a plaque inscribed with their names. The plaque, he said, would serve as a “constant reminder of the price so often paid for order in our society.”

Statewide, 171 CHP officers have been killed in duty-related accidents in the history of the department. Of those, 98 were killed in traffic collisions, 37 were shot, and 9 perished in accidents involving airplanes.

More than 50 officers, family members and public officials attended the ceremony outside the CHP office, in commemoration of Police Officers’ Memorial Week.

Family members of the honored officers said it was reassuring to know their relatives are remembered.

“It’s part of a healing process,” said Joe O’Connor, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy whose brother, James, was killed in a motorcycle accident in November, 1990.

James O’Connor’s widow, Carla, a former CHP officer, said, “I think this is a way to remember not only the officers who are gone, but also the officers who work everyday.”

The other Ventura County officers killed were David W. Copleman, who died in April, 1985, while chasing a speeding motorist on Highway 126 near Fillmore, and James H. Vande Weg, who died in a traffic collision in 1945.